Topic: Chemistry of Vaping and benefits to lungs (Read 508 times)

I have been helping a friend of mine quit smoking, so got her to move to vaping. In the process of doing this i started to research the subject of vaping as means for smoking cessation.

Here are couple facts I've learned and a chemistry question for bigger chemistry nerds than me:1. Vaping liquid consists of propelyne glycol (henceforth PG), vegetable glycerine (henceforth VG), nicotine and flavor. Nicotine and flavor come as solutions in PG or VG, so really the ejuice is like 95% PG+VG.2. Vaping has not been proven to be a safe or beneficial activity. It is however significantly healthier than smoking.3. Nicotine, in vape juice can be of much higher concentration than available in tobacco, which can pose nicotine overdose threat.4. Nicotine itself still has negative effects on persons health. Vaping nicotine is safer than smoking, but is is not safe.5. Some advocate for use of nicotine for ADD and similar conditions, however it is such a blunt weapon, affecting so many types of receptors that is is not a practical choice.

One topic that interests me now is possible uses of vape juice to help smoke damaged lungs heal. For example, vaping a larger amount of PG/VG liquid with smaller nicotine concentration as a way to "wash" the tar off lung tissue. How about formulating ejuice with healing additives to help damaged lung tissue heal? Vitamin E? May be other vitamins, which can be evaporated with ejuice and allowed to settle in lungs?

I tried discussing this subject on one of many vaping forum (not going to say which one), but the maturity level there seems to be too low for any scientific discussion which must recognize benefits and dangers of inhaling vaporized eliquid. Hence this post.Also, wanted to recognize and compliment the average maturity level we seem to enjoy on this forum. Having recently dealt with other communities, which tend to be predominantly populated by mental midgets is a good reminder of how nice it is to just discuss things scientific here.

EDIT: If anyone reading this post would like to switch from smoking to vaping, to ultimately quit smoking, feel free to PM me and i will try to share what i have learned to help you.

I am not allowed to create personal messages, but I am interested in your post. My field is Nutritional Therapy and Chronic Degenerative Diseases. I have never heard anyone suggest that vaping PG or VG could potentially help "wash the lungs clean" of tar juice, but that would be very interesting to me. I am also a smoker (and a hypocrite, apparently,) transitioning to a vape. I have begun making my own "e-juice," as it is more economical, easier to trust, and absent the diacetyl and other toxic or irritant flavorings, so I would be very interested in the results of your inquiries so far if you find something that would seem to be beneficial. Would you please PM or email me at: ChasenDeHeaux@gmail.com ?

I am not allowed to create personal messages, but I am interested in your post. My field is Nutritional Therapy and Chronic Degenerative Diseases. I have never heard anyone suggest that vaping PG or VG could potentially help "wash the lungs clean" of tar juice, but that would be very interesting to me. I am also a smoker (and a hypocrite, apparently,) transitioning to a vape. I have begun making my own "e-juice," as it is more economical, easier to trust, and absent the diacetyl and other toxic or irritant flavorings, so I would be very interested in the results of your inquiries so far if you find something that would seem to be beneficial. Would you please PM or email me at: ChasenDeHeaux@gmail.com ?

But I cannot say that any of these are safe to inhale, or how safe and active materials for this application might be extracted.

On a side note, your friend may want to drink some tea. It may or may not help heal the lungs but, I can tell you, licorice root is heaven for cravings.

I would also be interested to pick your brain about these synthetic nicotine salts.

Answering your questions in the open forum to help others with similar interests. I'll send you a personal message, may be you will be allowed to reply...1. I do not know of any scientific studies done for PG/VG washing the lungs out, however i have read many posts on vaping/smoking forums about people coughing up dirt from the throat / lungs for several weeks or months after switching to vape. Natural assumption that this dirt are carbon deposits from lungs that have now been dislodged by VG/PG. After all PG is an organic solvent.2. Nicotine salts is what i use in ejuice i mix for my friend and i tried hitting it myself, although i do not have nicotine addiction. I can confirm that i get nicotine high from salts with no throat burn, so very little throat hit. General consensus is that salts are not as harsh on the throat, hence higher concentration can be used than with free base nicotine. Nicotine salts have lower pH that free base nic, closer to neutral. Nicotine in tobacco is not freebase, so salts are closer to nicotine found in tobacco that freebase nicotine. Absorption rate for salts is also different that for free base. Nicotine salts are basically freebase nicotine with benzoic acid attached to it. https://www.elevatedvaping.com/blogs/news/what-is-nicotine-salthttps://www.misthub.com/blogs/vape-tutorials/what-are-nicotine-salts-beginners-guide-to-salt-e-liquid3. Mixing your own ejuice is great. You have full control over flavors and nicotine level. Plus you save about 90% vs the cost of commercial juice. There is a large community of people and tutorials and recipes available for this. Main ingredients are PG and VG which cost about $25 per gallon. Nicotine concentrate, which is like $7 for 150ml bottle of 100mg/ml concentrate. Empty child proof bottle are also available. All products themselves come in child proof bottles. This is a very well developed and seems to be responsible industry. Hence is my desire to leverage my own knowledge and knowledge of people on this forum to contribute to the vaping community with "healing" recipes.4. Some flavorings have been identifies as "possible carcinogenics"; but this threat is no where near as bad as smoking itself.

5. Low power devices use higher nicotine concentration (hence was the need to invent nic salts, which are proprietary for systems like juul). Low power devices(~10 watts) will have ejuice with as much as 60mg/ml of nicotine. High power vape mods which can deliver up to 200 watts need lower nic concentration. My lady friend, which was a pack a day smoker, likes 9mg/ml nicotine in her ejuice, but she is not taking big direct to lung hits. I can get high on nicotine (i am not addicted to it, never smoked and do not have developed tolerance) by taking couple full lung hits at 6mg/ml.

6. Vaping seems to be a good delivery method, especially with high power devices that enable user to do DTL (Direct To Lung) hits, for large quantities of PG and VG directly into lungs. With low enough nicotine concentration,it is possible to hold the vapor in lungs long enough that some of it will condense on the tissue. It is my hope to find a way to to use this delivery method to help people heal their lung tissue directly. Doctors use saline solution to wash tar off the lungs of smokers.Perhaps PG/VG with some additives can do that too.

Thank you so much for responding. You have been very helpful, even though this was supposed to be your question.

My gut tells me that if you find one "magic" additive that is beneficial to inhale, it will be something derived from an aloe. In my experience, that plant goop is a panacea to whatever it touches.

My next best hunch would be carvacrol.

Aloe family of plants is definitely a blessing for skin and such. I've read that Aloe arborescens actually has more vitamins and minerals than Aloe Vera (A. barbadensis). But aloe juice is a collection of a tonne of chemical compounds, probably many of which won't be suited to being aerosolized in a vaporizer. The question for vaping needs to be a more narrow scoped for a specific chemical.

The "vapour" from vaping is mainly an aerosol. Heat at the source must help, but at a temperature acceptable to the throat, the vapour pressure of glycerine is tiny.

This should help your potential additives like vitamins, which are fragile to heat. The usual wisdom (I have no opinion) is that cooking destroys them in food.

You might consider other processes to create the aerosol without heating. Ultrasound in the liquid is one possibility. Nozzles work too. Small portable aerosol generators exist against cough and for emergency treatment of asthmahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthma#Medications

The "vapour" from vaping is mainly an aerosol. Heat at the source must help, but at a temperature acceptable to the throat, the vapour pressure of glycerine is tiny.

This should help your potential additives like vitamins, which are fragile to heat. The usual wisdom (I have no opinion) is that cooking destroys them in food.

You might consider other processes to create the aerosol without heating. Ultrasound in the liquid is one possibility. Nozzles work too. Small portable aerosol generators exist against cough and for emergency treatment of asthmahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthma#Medications

I read on many vaping forums that smokers that swiched to vaping often experience cough with brown precipite when they start vaping up to a month in. The consensus among these individuals is that the brown stuff they see is dirt being cleaned out of their lungs. So the "cleaning mechanism" seems to be there. Just trying to improve it. Back clapping most certainly should help, however it is an additional mechanist to aid the cleaning. I am interested in further developing the chemical scrubbing plus healing aid aspect in ejuice, not all possible methods to clean lungs; there are many others to consider.

There are some vaping machines that produce VG/PG vapor by vibration, so in those cases a wider range of chemicals can be added to the ejuice as healing / scrubbing agents. But most atomizers are heat based using either a coil or mesh.

Well then, try to find the maximum temperature that your desired additives like vitamins can withstand, and compare with the heat in usual vapour generators. This will probably bring you to ultrasound-made aerosol.

Better tar solvents than glycerol and propylene glycol would be nice, but compounds acceptable in the lungs are rare, and if users get sick you don't want to be the one person who introduced a new compound, whether it caused the illness or not.